This is my current meditation of the week. “What do you mean by a whirlwind?” you ask. What I mean by “whirlwind” is the day-to-day “stuff” that demands our time and energy. It can include our daily responsibilities at work, social events we plan on attending, people we want to hang out with, and chores around the house to handle…you can fill in the blank on what is relevant to you.
Bottom line, the whirlwind usually has the potential to stress us out, especially with thoughts and fears of what will happen tomorrow if we don’t get it done by the end of today. In all transparency, this past week has been like that for me. I felt unproductive, frustrated, and fearful.
About what I chatted with you about in my previous blog post, check it out here if you haven’t ; perfectionism is directly linked with this topic. Perfectionism wants every priority, task, and commitment accomplished daily according to the “perfect” plan. And if it doesn’t go as planned, we go crazy, struggle to accept reality, and sleep at night because of it.
For those of you that may struggle with this, if you have any mentors that you trust, they may give you the usual scripture saying, “…don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:34).
As true and amazing as that passage sounds, it is sometimes hard to believe! And that’s frustrating! Don’t get me wrong, I agree with what Jesus said, but let’s be honest. I wish I could live this out every day.
Having dealt with this for a long time, I wonder, “Does the whirlwind ever end?”. Or here’s another question: “Did the whirlwind ever end since it started?”. Quite a brain wrinkle, isn’t it?
I’ve been seeking the Lord on this subject, and you know what He told me? He said, “The whirlwind never ended, son. It only changes languages and dialects.”. I was very intrigued by this response, so I asked what He meant by this. God responded, “Since I created Adam, the whirlwind started and never ended. He was not responsible for ‘getting everything done every day.’ I only commanded him to tend the garden I placed him in, multiply his generations to fill and govern it.”
I then asked a follow-up question. “How could he do this all by himself?”. God’s response comforted me immensely: “Josh, he is never meant to do all of this by himself. That’s why I said in the Bible, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.’”
I encourage everyone to practice conversing with Him regularly, whether you are born again or not because He is no respecter of persons. It will set your mind and soul right each time! To be clear, this chat I am having with Jesus about the whirlwind is still happening as I write this post.
This topic is too deep to brush off because I want to get to the bottom of this. However, no matter how much I don’t understand the stress of the whirlwind, what always has helped me is to trust in God regardless. And that is a decision that my head is not capable of making.
It must take place in my heart. I remember it once said by a neurosurgeon, “Do your best and let God do the rest.”. Doing my best is my responsibility and God doing the rest is His responsibility. Without trust, the latter will be hard and impossible. What’s ironic is that it’s simple! The only difficulty is trusting God with the rest you couldn’t finish without stressing about it. The only way that can happen, which I am working on, is by letting go of the mentality of “It’s all up to me to do everything.”.
Here’s something that will encourage you that helped me: It’s okay not to be okay.
It’s okay that you can’t get everything done every day. However, are you teachable? Are you coachable? Are you alright with correction? These questions can be hard pills to swallow, especially if they can happen at any moment. However, it tests your humility and trust in God. Where it comes down to is what you determine in your heart.
The reality of the whirlwind is that it has never ended and will never end while you are here on this earth. There will always be work to do for your entire lifetime. As a kid, that could mean school every day. As an adult, that could mean working every day. As a parent, that could mean caring for your kids and your house daily. There will always be things you have to do and things left undone. That’s okay.
A mentor of mine shared with me an example of a bison. During a storm, many animals run away from it out of fear to seek safety and comfort. However, a bison is different. Instead of running from the storm, the bison walks straight into it. “Why in the world would they do that?? They’ll die that way!”. Well, they are much smarter than you would think. They knew that walking into the storm would give them the least exposure to it and take them out of it quicker.
Interesting, right? That is what we need to do. We need to be bold and fearless when it comes to the whirlwind.
Instead of running away from it because it overwhelms us, we need to charge into it head-on and not fear whether it will subside. “How can I be bold?” you may be wondering. Let me share with you a biblical account of boldness being demonstrated. You know David, known as a “man after God’s own heart?”. He’s the one that defeated Goliath, who threatened the Israelites. Regularly, Goliath intimidated and sparked fear into them, which was quite a whirlwind to overcome that stole their peace every time they slept at night.
Even King Saul was afraid and stuck in his own head about how to react to the situation and how he would look to the Israelites as their leader. But David was different. Let’s see how David responded to the whirlwind, which would be Goliath in this case: : “As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him.” (1 Samuel 17:48).
I encourage you to either read or reread the whole story in context, but did you see the difference between David’s response and the rest of the Israelites’ response to Goliath?
Unlike the Israelites, David responded in boldness, even quickly! That is astounding. How was David so bold? Let me take you a couple of verses back, and we will see what gave David this much confidence:
“The LORD who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” (1 Samuel 17:37)
What was the source of the boldness that led to David quickly charging into the whirlwind of his situation? Trust in the Lord. Believing that God was and will continue to be with him as he sets into the storm. David was a bison. He doesn’t run away and try to avoid the whirlwind out of fear.
Let’s be like David and the bison.
The whirlwind of our everyday lives never has and will never end during our lifetime. So instead of trying to avoid the whirlwind, let’s charge into the storms and believe He has equipped us to overcome the whirlwind every day and trust Him to take care of the rest.
Leave a Reply